Charlie Savage

You know, the obvious question is, are they thinking about something to remove Maduro from power in Venezuela?

Right.

So we don't think they have enough troops there to go in and take over the country.

Like 1989 when the Bush administration invaded Panama to remove Noriega from power.

But certainly you could see a capture operation or a lethal operation.

We don't really know what we're looking at here.

But it certainly is a striking buildup of force.

It's a striking amount of rhetoric.

And now it's a striking use of force under this narco-terrorism rubric.

I think absolutely that, you know, drug traffickers, suspected drug traffickers are not at all a popular victim.

And certainly Manjaro administration is not a group of people that elicits much sympathy.

And to the extent that this is like we're getting tough with some visuals that play well on television, you can see the political attraction of it.

But the details like are these people on this particular boat or that particular boat actually engaged in drug smuggling?

Does fentanyl actually come from South America?

are also then standing alongside moral and abstract rule of law issues.

Does Trump have the power to summarily kill people he says are suspected drug smugglers?

Is this extrajudicial killings prohibited by laws against murder?

Not even war crimes because there is no armed conflict.

You need an armed conflict before you can have a war crime.

And it points also to questions about what's coming next, not just in the South Caribbean Sea, but even closer to home.